


on the road to ruin

by bethchildz



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, but they're safe and they love each other, major trigger warning for self harm and discussions of suicidal ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:07:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24608191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bethchildz/pseuds/bethchildz
Summary: There seems to be a storm inside of her, a hurricane that tears down anything and everything in its path. Shaw loves her for it, loves the whirlwind, the push and pull and violent delights, but what she’d never expected – even at her most destructive – was for that same pulse of danger that thrums through Root’s entire being to one day turn on itself.
Relationships: Root | Samantha Groves/Sameen Shaw
Comments: 6
Kudos: 63





	on the road to ruin

**Author's Note:**

> Major trigger warning for self-harm. 
> 
> I had this idea in my head after rewatching the show because I have always wanted to explore Root's mental health in more depth, and wish we could have seen more of that discussed in the show. It's set post-season 5 and Root survived her gunshot wound.

It doesn’t take long for Shaw to notice Root’s moods. 

She tries to hide them the best she can, flashing one of her signature smiles that’s playful but daring; like everything Root does, it’s almost everything at once. Shaw gets to know these smiles: the ones that come with a slight tilt of the head and wide twinkling eyes, full of mischief; the ones that fill her eyes with tears in a way that makes her face seem smaller, more delicate (so much like moonlight, like a crack in the sky that’s all-encompassing yet ephemeral); the ones that are exclusively designated to the bedroom, when her teeth show like fangs and her eyes are black and heavy and pleading for more (these ones turn Shaw’s insides into something close to fire, as though Root’s smile itself is a weapon and it’s devastating in its destruction. These just might be her favourite). But when Root is in one of her moods, these smiles are different: they don’t meet her eyes, and the tilt of the head is forced, almost too perfectly executed. She practices, Shaw thinks, when she’s not there.

It doesn’t work.

Her voice is forced, too; it lacks the singsong drawl and wholly frustrating lilt that so annoyed Shaw in the beginning. Instead, it’s flat and colourless and it sends something icy cold through Shaw’s chest. Often, on these days, she sits for long periods without speaking at all, staring out of the window and occasionally biting into an apple (she barely ever makes it the whole way through, discarding it half-finished next to her. It’s a waste and Root’s body can’t afford it).

Shaw doesn’t know how to comfort people. It isn’t in her wiring. She feels something twitch inside of her on these days, though, and she shifts uncomfortably at the unfamiliar sensation. The protectiveness that somehow overtakes her better judgment whenever she’s around Root worms its way through her gut, and she wishes there was some perpetrator, some identifiable face to blame, someone she could punch and kick and maybe shoot in the kneecaps. She knows that isn’t how this works. As much as firing her gun might make her feel better, she knows it won’t stop that crease from forming between Root’s eyebrows when she gets herself into one of her self-destructive spirals. More often than not, Shaw thinks, the only real danger to Root’s welfare is herself.

Shaw isn’t immune to these moments of darkness she witnesses in Root. If she thinks about her time with Samaritan for too long, she half expects the walls to cave in and leave her buried and gasping for breath. It had taken months for the touch of Root’s hands to make her feel good again. It had taken even longer for the dreams of white walls and needles and hospital beds to stop her waking in the middle of the night with her clothes soaked right through. She understands darkness – has wandered to the blackest parts of her brain and has almost succumbed to them. (She still remembers the way the needle had blurred so close to her eye, so close to pressing into never-ending darkness. She remembers the seething burn as the gun had pressed to her temple.) 

But there’s something so incredibly quaint and fragile about Root’s moods. Looking at her curled up in the corner staring out at the city below them, she looks so young, so small. Shaw can half imagine what she looked like as a child, alone, with no Machine whispering in her ear to keep her company back then. She had been blonde, she knows that, and in this moment, as the afternoon sunlight catches her brown curls, she wonders what she would have thought of Samantha Groves. She imagines herself as a teenager, reckless and thirsty for violence, and wonders how quickly they would have swallowed each other whole.

She wants to understand Root’s silence and the way her arms wrap tightly around her knees. She wants to know what it is she’s feeling – these real, human feelings – because in these moments, Root has never looked more human. Shaw knows there’s something happening in her brain that she will never quite comprehend: something to do with biochemistry and guilt and neurotransmitters. She sees the emotions flutter across Root’s face and she tries to count them, digest them, split them apart. She knows when Root becomes aware that she’s being watched because her shoulders rise a little before falling, and her thumb starts rubbing gentle circles on her other hand. 

She spends a lot of time observing Root: when she’s making breakfast in her ridiculous slippers and she’s wearing one of Shaw’s old hoodies that is far too short on her; when she’s lathering shampoo through her hair and there’s a content little grin on her face because she’s successfully infiltrated Shaw’s shower; when she’s between her legs making obscene patterns with her tongue and biting down hard on the most sensitive parts of Shaw’s thigh. But there’s something about watching her in these moments, as she stares out of the window, that she finds particularly intimate, and it should make her feel queasy and stifled and claustrophobic but it doesn’t. Root is good at turning Shaw’s entire world upside down. She’s stopped resenting her for it. 

One afternoon some time in January, Root’s mood seems especially low. The snow is accumulating on the outside of the window in neat little piles and Shaw watches as Root’s eyes follow the patterns of the snowflakes. She knows she’s thinking of some dumb nerd fact about how every snowflake has a unique symmetry – its own individual code – and half of her wishes she would say it out loud like she normally does. Today, the lines on Root’s face seem particularly pronounced, and she wonders if it’s something to do with how quiet The Machine has been this week. They haven’t had a number in a while, and The Machine hasn’t whisked Root off to God knows where on a death mission since last month. Shaw thinks they could probably do with the vacation time, and as bored as she is, she’s grateful Root isn’t stepping into an array of bullets with no thoughts to the consequences. (She knows they share this habit, and when they’re in it together, sometimes it feels like the closest she will ever be to another human being. But not knowing where she is and how dangerous her side missions are leaves a sour taste in Shaw’s mouth and she can’t help the niggling resentment she feels towards The Machine for it. She took her away from her once and she knows she wouldn’t hesitate to do it again…for the good of humanity, or whatever bullshit excuse she’d use this time.) Root doesn’t seem so pleased. Shaw knows she doesn’t like time to sit with her own thoughts – knows she spent far too much time doing it as a teenager – and not having a constant stream of instructions from her all-seeing God in her ear seems to drain so much of the life that usually lights up her face. 

There’s something so sorrowful about it today, and Shaw appears at her side with a cup of coffee and a protein bar that she pushes in Root’s direction. She takes the coffee but frowns a little at the food. 

“I’m not really hungry,” she says quietly. 

“You never are.”

She turns her head a little and looks at Shaw with soft eyes. There are dark circles beneath them, more prominent than usual, and Shaw knows she hasn’t eaten anything all day. She leaves it resting by her side on the windowsill but doesn’t press any further. 

“So what’s up, Eeyore? The Machine got you down today?” she tries. It’s become a nickname for these moods, and Root doesn’t seem to mind. A tiny hint of a smile tugs at the corners of her lips. She shakes her head, and wraps her hands tighter around the coffee cup. Her nails are painted black like usual, but it’s starting to chip at the edge of her thumbs. She taps them gently against the mug.

“She keeps telling me ways to look after myself,” she smiles but it’s melancholy, “including listing every self-help app available for free.”

Shaw can’t help but snort.

“Surely she knows you better than that.”

“She has a strange sense of humour,” Root breathes a small laugh. Shaw smiles a little too, but the corners of Root’s mouth turn down almost as quickly as they curled upwards. 

A long stretch of silence hangs heavy between them, and she thinks she sees tears beginning to form in the corners of Root’s eyes. Shaw doesn’t know how to deal with any of this. Putting the coffee cup down beside her, Root reaches at the hem of her shirt instead, her hand inching slightly upwards to rest over the pink skin that lies there. 

“Do you wish...that it had killed you?” Shaw asks, watching as Root fingers her scar, pressing harder than she should.

“Sometimes,” she admits, and she doesn’t look up. She doesn’t even seem surprised by the question. There’s a nonchalance in Root’s voice that Shaw doesn’t like – she had died for this woman, 7,000 times over, and sometimes it seems like Root has no regard for her own life at all. (She would still do it again though – pull the trigger to keep her safe – over and over. She knows that now.)

“Let me see it,” Shaw gestures to Root’s abdomen. Root lifts the shirt with a slight wince (she has played with the scar tissue and irritated it).

“It’s healing well.”

“The Machine hired the best surgeon in the state,” she says proudly. It does little to soothe Shaw. 

“I should kill that bastard all over again.”

“Aw, sweetie. I love it when you get all protective.” Some excitement has returned to her voice but it isn’t as enthusiastic as usual and it doesn’t sit right in Shaw’s stomach. She knows there’s something seriously afoot, and she feels an odd dread building from her legs. Worrying is still new to her. 

“Are you gonna tell me what’s really wrong?” Shaw asks after a while. Root is playing with the corners of the unopened protein bar and Shaw wishes she would just eat it. 

“There’s nothing wrong. It just happens sometimes.”

“What happens?”

“I want to hurt myself.” She says the words openly and sharply, and they almost cut a hole straight through the air. 

“Is that why you were so reckless with that number a few weeks ago?” 

Shaw remembers how Root had smiled as she stepped in front of a bullet for a man who didn’t deserve it. Luckily, the shooter had terrible aim, but the risk had been very real. Shaw had scolded her that evening, and Root had just thrown her a sadistic smile. There’d been something unhinged about her that day, something wild and chaotic behind her eyes and Shaw could see the coldness: the danger and the thrill rushing through her veins. They had fucked so hard she saw stars that night, but now looking back, she wonders if the pleasure on Root’s face hadn’t slightly been tinged with a sense of fucked up masochism (and not in the hot way).

“Maybe,” she shrugs, “I guess. I liked the rush of it.”

“I get the thrill of pain, Root. But you don’t have to hurt yourself.” 

Root doesn’t even attempt to make a joke, and Shaw watches intently as a tear slowly falls down her cheek. 

“It’s worse now,” she starts and then pauses, “now I don’t hurt other people.”

Oh. 

“But I think...in a way, hurting other people was just a way of hurting myself.”

She hasn’t heard Root speak like this in a long time. She gets a sense, not for the first time today, that Root is in some ways like the snowflakes that continue to fall on their window – so beautifully intricate, and powerful in their own right (even ruthless, perhaps, in large quantities) but achingly fragile too. They could melt at any time.

“I didn’t care, Shaw.” She barely ever calls her Shaw anymore. “When I was killing people. I was so...lost. It didn’t matter. But I was hurting. So bad I couldn’t even see it. I was so lonely.”

“You’re not alone anymore.” Shaw thinks of what Reese had said. _In our line of work, we walk in the dark. It doesn’t mean we have to walk in it alone._ Root had spent so much time alone. Root, with her bunny slippers and lava lamp and clingy, gropey hands that latch onto whatever body part of Shaw’s she can reach. Root, with her kaleidoscope of emotions and brain too big for her own good. 

“No,” she smiles as the tears reach her lips, “but I can’t erase what I’ve done.” 

Shaw doesn’t feel guilt. She never has and most likely never will. She isn’t made for it – the diagnosis she gave herself in her first year of medical school made that abundantly clear. Never in her life has she wished she could take someone else’s away. But now, as she watches the tears flow more heavily down Root’s flushed cheeks, she wishes she could rid her of whatever it is she’s feeling. Guilt. She’s never needed it. Why should Root have to carry it?

She shrugs, before saying, “It seems like you’ve more than made up for it.” She knows it’s not technically true (she’s never asked how many people Root has killed, and Root has never spoken about it, but Shaw knows the number is high) but she’s not sure what else she can say. Root seems aware of all of this, but she smiles anyway before she reaches out and gently squeezes Shaw’s hand. “The Machine chose you for a reason, Root. You believe in her, right? She wouldn’t pick a monster.”

Root considers that for a second and nods slightly. There’s a glazed look on her face for a moment or two and Shaw knows The Machine is telling her something.

“What did she say?”

“She agrees with you,” she smiles. 

“Good. Now eat your damn protein bar,” Shaw demands, noticing the way Root’s stomach is rumbling. “You can’t afford to get any skinnier.”

What she means is: _This is the only thing I can give you. Please take it._

Root opens the bar and takes a bite.

* * *

Root’s moods come and go. Usually, as quickly as she falls down, she picks right back up again. Shaw gets used to this back and forth, and barely blinks an eye. But something is different this time. She knows it when the next morning Root doesn’t try to wake her up with her ridiculously cold feet rubbing up and down her leg. Instead, Shaw finds her curled on her side with a blank expression on her face, staring at some unknown spot on the wall next to the bed. Not even the offer of morning sex manages to get a rise out of her. For a moment, Shaw thinks she must be talking to The Machine, but she remains like that for the rest of the day with no sign of moving.

Later in the evening, she hears the sound of the bath running and she lets herself relax a little. It’s strange – worrying about Root – but it comes instinctively now, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s only 20 minutes later when she hears sobbing coming from behind the bathroom door.

“Root? Root, let me in,” Shaw demands as she tries and fails to turn the door handle. There’s a pause between the sobs on the other side, and she thinks she hears someone (it doesn’t sound like Root) say “I can’t.”

“Bullshit. Open the door.”

When there is no response, without hesitating, she grabs one of Root’s bobby pins from her bedside table and jams it into the lock of the door. 

“God, this is really your area of expertise, not mine,” she grunts, turning the metal in her hand with difficulty. It takes a few seconds, but she hears a click and soon enough the door opens and she stumbles into the bathroom. 

Shaw has seen Root in various states of injury and undress: she has seen her bloodied and broken, she has tended to bullet wounds and nursed her through her recovery after her brush with death, she has seen her naked and bruised, naked and euphoric, but nothing could have prepared her for seeing Root as she is now: sitting in the bathtub, holding a razor between her fingers as she stares down in horror at the bloody water that submerges her legs.

It’s the first time in Shaw’s entire life that the sight of blood makes her feel nauseous.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” a voice that sounds vaguely like Root’s breaks through the periphery of Shaw’s consciousness. 

“What the fuck, Root?” Her voice is angry but her hands are tender as she rushes to her side, immediately draining the bath water and checking her injuries. Root is right, though, there is no serious damage: just a series of small cuts on the top of her thigh. They don’t run as deeply as the blood swirling down the drain would make one believe. Nevertheless, her heart is still hammering beneath her chest bone, and she’s running her fingers along the parts of her skin that remain untouched.

“I, I don’t know,” Root stutters in disbelief, as though she too has just walked in on the scene before them. Her sobs have stopped now, and instead a stunned expression turns her face an eerie white. 

“Wait there,” Shaw announces as she stands and rushes to get her first-aid kit. When she returns, Root’s expression hasn’t shifted, and she’s staring at her own hands. Shaw notices the razor has been placed beside her on the bath and the way the light catches the metal makes her want to throw up.

“Let me,” Shaw points to her thighs and Root nods. Shaw quickly gets to work disinfecting the cuts before placing small bandages over the deepest ones. She can feel Root’s body shaking beneath her, and she almost can’t bear to look her in the eye.

“What happened?” She asks, trying to keep her tone undemanding.

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I…zoned out.”

Shaw pauses for a moment. She is well aware of these episodes Root experiences – the dissociating, when a glazed look crosses her eyes and she sits blankly, entirely uncooperative. They creep her out, and usually if she cracks a few jokes or leaves her for a moment or two she snaps out of them. To think she could do something like _this_ while completely out of it scares Shaw more than she would like to admit. 

“Have you done it before?”

“Not since I was in my twenties,” Root admits, and her voice is so small, so afraid, it reminds her of the woman who once fell to the floor of a warehouse with a gunshot wound to the shoulder so many years ago. She had looked so small kneeling on the floor that day, so fragile, and Shaw thinks she sees the same look cross her face just now. It’s desperate and pained and far too like the snowflakes she had watched melt away yesterday afternoon.

“Okay. We can talk about this later. Come on,” she offers Root her hand and pulls her up, wrapping her in a towel. Once she is dressed, Shaw leads her to their bed and drapes a blanket over her shivering body. 

Looking after someone in this way doesn’t come naturally to her. She feels twitchy, and she feels angry – angry that Root would hurt herself like that, angry that she doesn’t know how to make it better, angry that she is incapable of giving Root what she needs right now. She watches as a few silent tears fall down the curve of her nose. She is reminded, all too suddenly, of the aftermath of Samaritan: when the days all melted into one and she spent a week without showering. Root had seen her at the lowest of her lows, grappling with reality and angry at the world. She had been beside her throughout it all, staying up through all hours of the night to watch over her and soothe her after her nightmares. It had made Shaw feel smothered, and she’d tried her best to shove her away, to scare her off. Nothing had worked. It’s only fair, she thinks, that she’s here for Root now. (And despite how uncomfortable it may make her, she would do anything for Root. Anything to keep her safe.)

She lays beside her on the bed and gently places a hand on her waist. Root is a cuddler. She has been since the beginning, and Shaw often wakes up in the middle of the night to find Root’s hair splayed across her chest, or her face pressed against her back. At first, she hated it. She would shove her away and push her to her own side of the bed, but somewhere along the line waking as Root’s little spoon stopped being so annoying, and it simply became a part of their strange routine. Sometimes, when she wraps Root in her own arms and she can feel her back pressed to her chest, Shaw finds she actually sleeps better (not that she would admit it). It feels natural now, to pull Root against her own body and feel her so close. 

She’s not sure how much time passes before she speaks into the emptiness, “Do you know why you did it?”

She feels Root sniffle and shrug beside her. 

“Not really.”

“Does it hurt?”

“A little. I’ve had worse.”

Shaw holds her a little tighter, wrapping her arms around her small waist. 

“You’re an idiot,” she whispers into her neck. Root laughs a little; a small, half-laugh that doesn’t quite meet her eyes but it’s comforting nonetheless.

“I know. Are you mad at me?”

Shaw scoffs. “I should be.” Root is far too quiet after that, and Shaw shifts slightly behind her.

“No, Root. I’m not mad. Just go to sleep, okay.”

It takes her a while, but her eyes close eventually and Shaw can feel her breathing change beneath her fingers. She watches her chest rise and fall and wonders how it’s possible that someone so dynamic, so capable of inflicting and experiencing pain, can look so peaceful in her sleep. There seems to be a storm inside of her, a hurricane that tears down anything and everything in its path. Shaw loves her for it, loves the whirlwind, the push and pull and violent delights, but what she’d never expected – even at her most destructive – was for that same pulse of danger that thrums through Root’s entire being to one day turn on itself. Perhaps she should have seen it: the way she could be so reckless, so impulsive and quick to disregard her own worth, the way she spoke yesterday of wanting to hurt herself. She always knew she was _capable_ of it. But it still makes her stomach turn to think she could actually _do_ it.

She wants to protect this woman.

She wants to shelter her from the outside world of bad guys with bullets, but also, from the demons in her own head that compel her hands to drag razorblades down her legs.

* * *

The soft, winter sunlight filtering through the crack in the curtains is what wakes Shaw the next day. It’s cold, and even in her sleep, it’s like Root is shivering beside her. She lets her sleep in till past noon, knowing she needs it, and instead takes the time to make her a proper meal, one with meat and vegetables and actually requires using cutlery. She never used to keep food in her fridge, choosing instead to find a takeout somewhere nearby, but something about the way Root’s already terrible eating habits had annoyed her as soon as they (unofficially) moved in together, meant that somewhere along the line the shelves had begun to fill themselves, as though it was the only way Root would actually eat. Shaw has to bite down the urge to fight how domestic it all seems, because this is what Root _needs_ , and she herself is starving, so really it isn’t a big deal. But when Root finally makes her way into the kitchen, there’s a small smile on her face, and she’s almost raising her eyebrows conspiratorially. 

“Are we having dinner for breakfast?”

“It’s almost 2,” Shaw deadpans, turning back to the food, but really, Root seems happier today. She’s not sure if that’s more worrying than good, but she’ll take it. 

They eat their noodles in relative silence, Bear hovering somewhere nearby and seemingly sensing the odd tension that hangs in the air around them. He barks once, tilting his head towards Shaw and she reaches out and pats his head affectionately. Root watches her do it, and she plays with the fork in her hand, looking down into her food with a small sigh. Shaw isn’t sure how to bring it up. She’s not sure whether to even bring it up at all. But then they’re clearing away the dishes, and Root tries to discreetly scratch her leg, and suddenly Shaw’s hand is rough around her wrist and she’s shoving it away.

“Don’t touch them,” she warns, and her voice is deeper than she means it to be, angrier maybe, and she curses herself when Root flinches a little.

They tiptoe around it for the rest of the day, Root spending most of the evening glued to her laptop. But once they start dressing for bed, Shaw gets a glimpse of the small red cuts on her thigh and has to swallow down the urge to yell.

“You took off the bandages?” She asks, and her voice is even this time. Maybe a little flat. 

“They were itching.”

“Yeah, that’s kind of the point, Root. They’re healing.”

“They’re fine.” And she flashes that smile again, the one that’s supposed to convince Shaw she’s herself again, but of course it doesn’t work. Instead of fighting, she grabs the first-aid kit from the night before and gently sits her down on the bed. 

“Let me,” she says when Root starts to protest. She relaxes after that, her head leaning back a little when Shaw’s cold hands reach the bare skin of her thigh.

“I love it when you play doctor,” she drawls, her voice all molten and teasing. 

“Root, this isn’t funny. This isn’t accidentally getting clipped by a bullet. It isn’t falling too hard from a moving vehicle. It’s self-harm. And it isn’t okay.” 

Root pauses for a second before opening her mouth to say something. “And don’t even think about making a joke about what we do in bed together. Don’t compare that to this. Pain for pleasure is not the same as pain for self-punishment.” 

“I’m sorry. I won’t do it again,” she says but there’s a small smile on her face, and Shaw doesn’t know what that means. It’s different this time; there’s a nervousness there she’s never witnessed in her before. She hopes she isn’t getting a sick thrill out of this. She looks so tousled right now: her hair is slightly frizzy and she has mascara smudged under her eyes that she never bothered to take off from the night before. Shaw has never seen her so vulnerable, even yesterday, even when she’s stripped naked in bed and she’s writhing beneath her. There’s a heaviness tonight, one she’s not sure she’s ever felt before. It’s new and it’s uncomfortable and there’s an ache somewhere beneath her chest bone that she can’t quite shift.

She probably shouldn’t be surprised when, a little while later, Root begins leaving open-mouthed kisses along Shaw’s neck, her hands reaching underneath her shirt and running trails along her chest. It isn’t out of the ordinary; they tend to use sex as a means of communicating, when they can’t find the words or they fear words won’t suffice, and she often wonders if Root is like that with everyone, or if it’s just her unique attempt to try and speak Shaw’s language. Either way, she knows the hands that begin searching her body are looking for more than just pleasure. 

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Shaw asks, her voice a little breathy.

“Please,” Root whispers into her skin, and there’s no violence to her touch, no nails digging into her hips or teeth leaving pucker marks on her thigh, and Shaw wonders if, today, this isn’t more about all the ways Root is incapable of treating herself. 

Shaw doesn’t usually like it slow, and God forbid gentle. She’s never been any good at it. But Root is the exception to all of her rules, and she’s realising with every flick of her fingers that perhaps it isn’t so bad after all. It’s not their default, and it certainly doesn’t happen very often, but tonight Root needs it. And when she begins to feel the dampness of hot tears fall softly against her thigh, she doesn’t mention it, she simply threads her hands through Root’s hair and brings her closer to her body. 

She knows if it does happen again, she’ll be there to pick up the pieces. 


End file.
